One day, Frank thought to ask another frog, Sally, why no one wanted to hang out with him.

"Why does no one want to hang out with me?" Frank asked.

"What are you talking about?" Sally replied.

"Well, no one wants to hang out with me," Frank reiterated.

"That's not true," Sally said.

"Do you want to hang out?" Frank said.

"Oh, I'm really busy," Sally said. "Sorry."

So Frank decided to be happy by himself. He immersed himself in art. Frank the Frog really liked painting. He spent all day painting.

"Hey, Billy," he said to Billy one day. "Do you want to see my paintings? They're really neat!"

"No thanks," Billy replied.

So Frank let Billy go.

Frank really liked his artwork though, so he hung it up all over the pond to stare at.

"Hey Billy," Maven said. She was the queen of the pond. No one had elected her, but somehow she was the queen. "Your art is annoying. Please take it down."

"But I like it!" Frank replied.

"You need to take it down," Maven said. "Or I'll take it down for you."

Frank was sad and confused. He loved painting so much, but it only made other people upset. He wanted to keep painting, but the paintings he already had took up so much space in his corner that he didn't have any more space to paint if he didn't hang up his paintings.

Then Frank had an idea.

"Hey everybody," Frank said as loudly as he could to his pond community. "I have these paintings on canvases. Does anyone want them?"

Don, one of the older frogs swam up to Frank.

"Sure, Frank," Don said. "This would make a great stand for my lizard cage."

Don took the paintings from Frank and stacked them up. He tied twine around them and swam off back home.

Frank was now sitting on his lily pad alone. He didn't have his paintings that made him happy, but at least now he had space to make more paintings.

Frank decided this was stupid.

He packed up his paints and set off on a journey to Amberdash, a place where lots of people paint.

He set up his painting things. Finally, people who like painting!

"Sorry," a policefrog said, walking up to him. "You're going to have to leave. We don't have room for you here."

"But--" Frank stammered.

"Now."

Frank stumbled off. He was confused. He loved painting, but no one loved him. Maybe Frank was actually a monkey! Maybe no one had told him!

So he climbed up a tree.

For some reason, he figured it out. He didn't know how he'd figured it out, but he managed to climb up the tree.

"Hey, what's going on?" a monkey asked him. "I'm Seymour."

"I'm Frank," Frank said.

"Are you a monkey?" Seymour asked.

"I'm not sure," Frank said.

"Cool, bro. Cool," Seymour replied.

Seymour got a look at Frank's paints.

"Whoa, man," Seymour said. "Paints are not cool. If you want to hang with us, you need to sing."

"Sing?"

"Yeah, like, 'Ahhhhhh,'" Seymour sang. "Sing."

"OK," Frank said. "I'll give it a go."

Frank let his paints fall to the ground. He started singing.

It was an old nursery rhyme he'd learned from the birds.

It went:

Please don't eat us

We aren't dead

Leave the vultures

From our heads

"Dude," Seymour said. "You're amazing!" Seymour turned his head to the side to call his friends. "Hey, guys! Come check this out! This dude has got it!"

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Like Kelly Clarkson (‘s songwriter who was quoting an old adage) once said, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” And that’s true, because I’ve done a lot of things in life that haven’t killed me, and I got stronger. For example, eating chicken didn’t kill me, and I’ve heard that protein makes you stronger. Also head lice. I haven’t ever gotten head lice, but that’s just another thing that hasn’t killed me either.

#2 Benefit of Mental Breakdowns: They’re Entertaining

No expensive movie ticket needed! Just wallow in your own misery! Or, better yet, get a mirror and watch yourself wallow in your own misery! Much better than watching Nicole Kidman wallow in her own misery on the big screen! (Unless, of course, you are Nicole Kidman.)

#3 Benefit of Mental Breakdowns: They Make for Good Songs

Just ask The Beatles! Do you think they wrote, “Yeah I’m lonely, wanna dieeeee” while they were smoking weed, banging chicks, and swimming in a pool of money? (Well, come to think of it, yeah, they probably were.)

#4 Benefit of Mental Breakdowns: They’re Free

That’s more than I can say about lunch.

#5 Benefit of Mental Breakdowns: They Make for Good Memoirs

It is impossible to write a good memoir without at least one mental breakdown, if not 30. And they have to be good mental breakdowns too.

None of this, “Oh, I’m really sad because my dog just got run over by a train” crap; you have to move people with long run-on sentences like:

I was on the verge of extinction, lying on the cold marble, diamond-encrusted, Chanel №5-infused bathroom floor, knowing that I had nothing to live for; not only did my dog get run over by a train, but so did my husband, my aunt, my mother-in-law (though, good riddance to her — she did never like my curtains), 12 of my butlers, and my parakeet; and to top it all off: my eyelash extensionssuck — I said I wanted Audrey Hepburn, not Drag Queen Night-Walker — so there I lay, the tears filling in the gaps between my god-awful eyelash extensions, knowing that it would all be over… all be over… all be over… very soon.”

But to absolutely no one’s surprise, it wasn’t over for the writer, because they were alive enough to (hire a ghost-) write (-r for) their book.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Part One

I bought it awhile ago on CraigsList from this older guy who was the nicest, coolest person ever. I wish he could be my spiritual guide or my guru or my librarian or something.

I don't have a picture of him, so here's a picture of Jackie Chan.

My bike was pretty inexpensive, despite my being from Colorado, where it's the law that your bicycle has to cost more than your car.

It's ok though, because I don't own a car.

I put on some clothes, which are not bike riding clothes at all. But my butt* looked really good in them, so I was sure that someone would ask if they could be my boyfriend.

Here is a pictures of my clothes.

*Butt not shown here

Then I got my sunglasses, but they were broken, because it is the destiny of sunglasses to break.

Then I put on my helmet and took another picture of myself.

Then I was ready to go!

Part Two

Ten feet.

When my bike chain fell off.

Luckily, I'm a genius, so this did not phase me.

Then I was ready to go!

When this car stopped halfway down the block.

Luckily, I'm a genius, so this did not phase me.

Then I was ready to go!

When a bus came up behind me and started honking at me.

I might be a genius, but this was getting ridiculous.

I mean, OK, bus driver man. I know you want to be my boyfriend, but your wanting to check me out is no reason to honk at me when you could just stop the bus, get out, and ask me for my number.

Then I was ready to go!

So I got off my bike and walked.

Part Three

To the park!

YAY!

YAY!!!

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THERE WERE EVEN BICYCLES AND PLACES FOR BICYCLES TO RIDE AND BICYCLISTS!!!!!

(Who could TOTALLY ask to be my boyfriend!)

I rode and rode and rode!

Then I was thirsty.

So I said, "Dude, why is this water $3.00? This costs half at the regular store."

And he said, "Because this stand costs $150,000 in fees to run each year, not including taxes, or cost of goods."

"Oh."

Part Four

After having a nice, long bike ride, and after enjoying the beauty of the park, the nice weather, and the fact that I managed not to get hit by any cars, the day was a complete DISASTER because no one asked me if they could be my boyfriend even though my butt looked TOTALLY CUTE IN MY PANTS.

I mean, yeah... maybe it's "hard" to ask me out when I'm riding SUPER FAST because I am SUPER AWESOME at bike-riding, but that is no excuse.

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Chapter books have too many chapters. Ends of chapters encourage people to stop reading, which is bad. Because then Oprah wouldn't have a book club.

Oprah.

If I wrote a novel, there would be no chapters. So if someone was reading it and decided that they would put the book down at the end of the chapter, that would never happen. Actually, I wouldn't have paragraphs either—they encourage pauses. In fact, my whole novel will be one long run-on-sentence. That way, I don’t have to waste my time on “grammar” and “sentence structure” and could write the worst book ever, and get away with it. I mean, Twilight did.

The best story ever if you've never read any other stories ever.

Whoever came up with the idea to put coffee shops in bookstores was brilliant. Because there’s no way to ruin a book faster than to spill coffee on it, and there’s no way to force customers to purchase a book faster than to set them up to spill coffee on it.

I’ve heard that the only reason Barnes and Noble is still in business is because of their “Nook”—their electronic reading device—and I agree with that. What better way to make higher profits than to provide customers with an even more expensive item that they can spill coffee on?

The original nook.

Other industries should start selling products along with the products’ nemesis as well to force customers to ruin, and therefore buy, more products.

Like cell phones at the toilet bowl store.

Or cds at the Frisbee store.

Or dryers at the left sock store.

A left sock.

Everyone should judge books by their cover, because good artwork means that the illustrator was inspired enough by the book to draw something good. If I were designing a cover for a crap book, my cover would look like crap. Because I'm a very accurate illustrator.

I would make a nice cover for a crappy book if a publisher gave me enough money for it, though. Maybe even though the book was boring or dumb or no one else wanted it, they would throw money at it because they felt sorry for it. I know how that feels, being a stripper and all.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

I don't usually like to focus on things that "bother me", but there is something that has been bothering me for awhile now--in the same way that it bothers me when people say "ax" instead of "ask". Or "imparticular" instead of "in particular". Or when people call me "Sweetie".

I ain't yo' sweetie.

Anyway, I'd like to talk about this idea that “curvy” somehow is now a euphemism for “fat”.

Now, I have no intention of showing you pictures of "fat girls who aren't actually fat", and then saying things like:

"OMG SHE'S SO BEAUTIFULLLLL!"

or

"Let's compare her to an anorexic girl and see which one is more BEAUTIFULLLLLL!"

or

"Marilyn Monroe was curvy and she was so BEAUTIFULLLLLL!"

Sorry to disappoint you, Tyra Banks, but that's not what I'm here for.

No, I'm here to tell you that it is mathematically incorrect to be calling so-called "curvy" girls "curvy". So you better stop it.

To begin, let's look at a standard woman's sizing chart:

Numeric

Waist

Hip

00

23.5

33

0

24.5

34

2

25.5

35

4

26.5

36

6

27.5

37

8

28.5

38

10

30

39.5

12

31.5

41

14

33

42.5

16

34.5

44

18

36.5

46

Now, if your idea of a good time is creating tables in Excel like me, you would find that the waist-to-hip ratio is smaller for the smaller sizes:

Numeric

Waist

Hip

Ratio

00

23.5

33

0.712121212

0

24.5

34

0.720588235

2

25.5

35

0.728571429

4

26.5

36

0.736111111

6

27.5

37

0.743243243

8

28.5

38

0.75

10

30

39.5

0.759493671

12

31.5

41

0.768292683

14

33

42.5

0.776470588

16

34.5

44

0.784090909

18

36.5

46

0.793478261

Here is a graphic representation of this phenomenon:

(I'm very sorry, but this masterpiece is not for sale.)

As you can see, there is a greater curve of the body to the smaller size because it has to cover more distance in a shorter period than the larger size (because you don't also get taller if you get fatter, or shorter if you get skinnier, except for kids and old people).

Put even more plainly, if your body type follows this sort of chart, if you gained a lot of weight, your waist to hips would eventually be 1:1 and there would be NO curve; the fatter you were, the less curvy you would be.

And the skinnier you were, the more curvy you would be.

All right... so I know that a lot of people put on weight differently, and I know that a lot of people have different body types and may not follow sizing charts exactly. Some people are shaped like this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or this:

And you are all beautiful in your own special way. (At least to your mother. Or maybe to a blind person.)

But the point I was trying to make was that sometimes (maybe even usually), girls who fit smaller sizes are actually curvier than girls who fit larger sizes.

Hence, it is NOT correct to use "curvy" as a synonym for "overweight", as this is frequently inaccurate, misleading, and it is causing our youth to fail the math portion of their SATs. (I mean, probably.)

Unless, of course, you're talking about "curvy" as a description of the body from the side view: